alternatehistory.com

19 August

The keels are laid on three screw frigates to form the cruising force of the Confederate Navy. They are provisionally named the Washington, Adams and Jefferson - a practice which some assume is calculated to annoy the Union, though the Confederacy as a whole generally considers itself the true heir of many of the early Presidents and sees nothing wrong with the names.

20 August
The Vanderbilt, operating on sail alone for now, steers clear of a cloud of smoke on the horizon thought to be a warship. (This suspicion is incorrect, it is a 3,500 ton steamer trading with Alexandria, but the Vanderbilt does not have a secure enough coal supply for a potential chase if it turns out to be a British warship.)

Admiralty planners look over the accounts from Milne's fleet on how various fortifications were attacked, and begin absorbing and refining the information. Among the lessons that come out are a need for greater focus on mine detection and clearing, the importance of planning based on the specific hydrological environment of the harbour, and the high value of a sufficiently well armoured ironclad. (The spectacular work of Aetna in Boston, with her armour impenetrable to the Union guns and her Armstrong guns able to collapse the fort face with sustained fire at close range, has drawn particular attention.)

As part of a planning exercise, maps are examined of locations such as Sveaborg, Krondstadt, Konstantiniyye (Constantinople), Brest, Charleston, Gosport - generally speaking, all the great dockyards and ports of the world which are neither British nor recently successfully bombarded by the British - to determine the ideal modes of attack.


22 August

The Diet in Prussia indicates it will reject the planned reorganization of the Prussian army, considering it both overly expensive and overly conservative - bluntly, the idea is to sideline the Landwehr (which is a cross-section of society) in exchange for the more peasant-oriented and aristocrat-officered regular army (which would recieve both a large funding boost and a considerable expansion) in Roon's reforms.
The Civil War in America is used as evidence for both sides - the success of the Confederates arguing for an army formed on the outbreak of war, the defeat of the Union arguing against, and the achievements of the British Army causing many conservative Prussian officers mild cases of cognitive dissonance.
Making things worse is the grain market disruption from the Civil War, which has led to a consideration of temporary Diet-funded diet supplements by way of large grain purchases - something which would affect the proposed army funding. (The pun does not work so well in German.)


23 August

Five days of discussion have not helped matters much at Havana. It has been made clear by all the mediators that the Union position is completely unrealistic (Lyons noting that the Union seem not to have remembered they were the ones who sued for peace), the British position is overly ambitious given the facts on the ground, and the Confederate position is at best unworkable.


Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the west, the Superior Junta of Mexico (consisting mostly of haciendos) proclaims a Catholic Empire of Mexico and appoints an interim President in order to hold a plebiscite across Mexico - specifically, over whether Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria is acceptable as the Emperor of Mexico, a condition Maximilian placed on his taking the throne if offered.
The plebiscite's legitimacy is an enduring question, though many observe it is at least less suspiciously one sided than the elections of Napoleon I and George Washington. (Washington obtained literally every single vote; Napoleon obtained 99.94% of the vote in 1800, 99.76% in 1802 and 99.93% in 1804, as well as 99.67% in 1815. By contrast the Mexican plebiscite is a model of plurality.)